To blame or hold responsible; to assign fault or culpability to someone (archaic or rare).
From Latin culpatus, past participle of culpare (to blame), derived from culpa (fault). This verb form is rare in modern English, with 'inculpate' and 'exculpate' being more common derivatives.
While 'culpate' is virtually obsolete, its relatives 'inculpate' (to incriminate) and 'exculpate' (to clear of blame) are still used in legal language—showing how Latin verb forms got split into useful modern pairs.
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